Tribute to Alan Watts (8/27/10)

And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on.

...But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be. ..Faith is a state of openness or trust... In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.  

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.

 

No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.

We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.

We identify in our experience a differentiation between what we do and what happens to us.

So the Bodhisattva saves all beings, not by preaching sermons to them, but by showing them that they are delivered, they are liberated, by the act of not being able to stop changing.

So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.

So what is discord at one level of your being is harmony at another level.

The ego is nothing other than the focus of conscious attention.

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.

Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.

You and I are all as much continuous with the physical universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.

To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.